4 Reasons Why Winter Was The Best Season As A Kid

When I was a youngen, I was different than all the other kids in a fundamental way: I hated the summer. Sure, you got school off, but I just never cared about beach trips and sweating on my own couch. When it came to naming your favorite season, you were cool if you said “summer” (and gay if you said “spring”, and a total nerd if you said “autumn” because that word is stupid). I went against the grain. I always said “winter.” Here’s why.

1) It Forced Me To Be More Creative

The first point everyone would counter with would always be “Ya, but it’s cold out.” True. It’s cold out.

Did you ever have those “Rainy Day” games as a kid? For some reason I picture everyone having a box in the closet labeled “Rainy Day Stuff” but no one actually used it. Because they were boring. Anything that is specifically designed to pass time during a rainy day is specifically designed to pass time.

No, a real rainy day kit is a box of Legos. It’s a pad of drawing paper. It’s something blank which requires input. Of course, those same items are perfectally suited for a snowy day as well.

I was probably my most creative during snow days (when I wasn’t celebrating the day off by beating Sonic again). A jumbled box of Legos would become an epic battle scene on my pool table. Sometimes I’d even include miscellaneous figures from other toy sets because someone had to be the enemy.

The green ones. I was a little bit racist as a kid.

I’d make sprawling castles and spaceships that would probably actually fly if they were to scale. There’d be drama. There’d be war. There’d be comedy. There’d be romance.

It got weird.

All of that happened in my own head. No one else in the world knew the story. And that was pure imagination. You can’t get that from playing an outdoor sport. Being cooped up inside forced me to be creative, and it’s the very reason Minecraft became so popular when it came out. We finally got to play with Legos without making an actual mess.

Hold on, I just gotta save the game.

Of course, when the snow stopped and you finally went outside, it was equally awesome, because:

2) Everything Outside Suddenly Became Cushioned

Remember the first time you’d open the door to a fresh snowfall? It was beautiful. Untouched, like the book in my drawer about what puberty is (never finished Chapter 7).

I used to love looking out back at the swing-set and seeing how it was all covered in 2 inches of wait a minute we can still use it but NOW EVERYTHING IS SUPER SOFT! Oh My God, we can do the most dangerous things in the world and not ever get hurt! Let’s jump off the slide. No, let’s jump off the porch, no goddamn it get Dad’s ladder we’re going to the FUCKING ROOF!!!

Ok now…get Dad’s special Band-Aids. Quickly.

Realizing you could jump 20 feet off of anything without consequence for a whole day was equivalent to learning what Las Vegas was as an adult.

And when you’re done?

3) Relaxing Is Considered A Seasonal Activity

You play out in the big pillow for 2 hours and then it’s time to go inside. Get yourself a hot cup of chocolate and sit in front of a fire with a blanket. Congratulations, you’re doing a wintery thing.

There is no other season that can brag about that. Spring has cleaning. Summer is for outside projects. Fall is literally one 3 month long game of “Can I pick up more leaves than every tree in my yard can drop?”

Winter is all about food, chilling out, and sleeping till noon. It’s the only time of year when everyone collectively decides that nothing is going to get done.

As for the sleeping till noon thing, you probably won’t even be able to tell, since:

4) The World Is Draped In A Sea Of Darkness

As an adult, darkness usually means its time to go to bed so you can get up and hate yourself all over again the next morning. Sure, the more interesting stuff in life happens at night, but for a young child it doesn’t make much of a difference.

Unless he’s hustlin’.

When you get a little older, that changes. I kinda enjoyed the darkness as a kid. It was so mysterious: dangerous yet inviting. The fear of the unknown was equal to the rush of adventure. Of course I was scared shitless of it. Which is why I had a nightlight until about 12th grade.

In the winter, it was dark out before you finished eating dinner. And that was cool because being on the Dark Side was cool. You gotta let out your inner emo once in a while.

Careful. He bites.

The other unique trait that the winter brings upon us is less than pleasurable, but it’s important to remember:

5) You Can Always Run From The Cold

When it comes to extreme temperatures, they equally suck. Sweating profusely just to walk across the street in 90 degree heat is just as shitty as freezing your ass off trying to get to your car in the morning. But there’s a very important distinction: you can’t hide from heat.

He’ll fucking find you.

Whenever you do a jumping jack or watch a porn, heat is naturally produced by the body. When you do it inside a structure, the heat tends to stay inside. Even if you do nothing, a house made out of snow will keep your warmer than if you were 2 feet away outside the door. Seeking shelter from cold isn’t that hard in a modern environment.

Heat, however, is virtually inescapable without some third-party intervention. You need a device, a fan or an air conditioner perhaps, one that requires power, to help you. And even then, fans only really push the already hot air around. Not to mention that this entire time you are running around trying to fight the heat, your body is producing even more of it by burning energy.

Simply, if Earth starts to freeze over, jump into any cave and you’ll be better off. If the ground starts melting beneath your feet, you can pretty much give up. Eat the last Twinkie before you pass out.

Heat is a bully who will not stop chasing you until you collapse. Cold may be a dick, but you can defeat him by giving someone a hug.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2013 at 09:00 and is filed under Nature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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